


Blinkenlights

by Berchtwald



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artificial Intelligence, Brainwashing, M/M, Mind Control, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berchtwald/pseuds/Berchtwald
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is sent on an intriguing, but routine infiltration of a Hydra base after S.H.I.E.L.D. receives a distress call that reveals its presence under New York City.  It gets more interesting when she meets the three occupants; a Swiss scientist that only reveals himself on a computer screen, a probably-brainwashed engineer that can barely remember his own name when asked, and the world's most lethal assassin.</p>
<p>An AU from one divergent event in 1991.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Spring, 1991_

“I have a gift for you, Zola.” 

The man called himself Whitehall now, and the placid face rendered in green and black hadn’t reacted to that announcement then, nor this declaration he made now through the lips of a too-wide smile. Zola’s cameras and microphones throughout the new Hydra bunker were extensive and missed nothing that went on inside. No activity, no entry, certainly not what Whitehall had brought with him. 

Whitehall thought he was being clever, perhaps, by bringing the ‘gift’ in with a bag over his head. Little more than a child, it seemed, being dragged in front of Zola’s primary monitor by none other than what Zola tolerated being referred to merely as ‘The Asset’, which seemed a bit much. None of the child’s fight indicated he was any sort of threat. 

“I am curious to know what use you think I have for a boy,” Zola asked, bored by all this. He had much to do, much to do. 

“Fuck you,” the boy spat, followed by a cry as the metal hand on his bicep tightened in response. The Asset was blank as he ‘encouraged’ the ‘gift’ to quiet down. The child sounded drugged, which was to be expected, he supposed. 

“As you may be aware,” Whitehall said, “we have just had to… _remove_ Howard Stark from S.H.I.E.L.D., before he became a genuine danger to us.” 

The child was perfectly still now. 

“His wife Maria was collateral damage. But imagine my surprise when an unexpected element was reported found, alive and well in the back seat of the car, so drunk he slept through the entire thing,” Whitehall continued, his beady eyes smirking with amusement behind those old-fashioned glasses he favoured. Then he nodded to The Asset, who pulled the black bag off the child’s head. 

Not quite a child; a young man, barely. Bloodshot eyes rolled around as his surroundings, dilated and confused with fear and rage. The back of his head had been shaved, a bandage hiding some recent injury, or more likely given his current custodian, modification. Zola consulted his records. 

“Anthony Stark, the child prodigy,” he declared as he found the data, so quickly the merely human onlookers might have thought he had the information in front of him the whole time. He enjoyed that. There was genuine interest in his voice over the speakers now. Young Anthony was more than a footnote in Hydra’s blessedly complete records because he was so obviously being groomed to be the heir of Howard’s technological and economic dominance, showing the aptitude for the work as soon as he could walk. He may well have had the potential to surpass his father even then. 

Potential, however, had to be fostered in the proper hands to bear fruit. 

“Dear boy,” Zola said. “I may have some use for you after all.” 

The young man struggled to focus on the monitor and made a slurred, unhappy sound. 

“Give von Strucker my regards,” Zola told Whitehall, acceptance not only of the gift, but the implication of coming here. Perhaps it was, indeed, time to begin returning Hydra to its former glory. 

* * * * 

_Twenty Years Later_

Natasha found that of all the roles she played for her work the most difficult was herself. The weapon groomed to lash out with deadly efficiency for the right puller of her strings. The thing she had left behind. But not so long ago she couldn’t pretend a new, human-like life was nothing more than another assignment abandoned for other pursuits. 

No contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. for six months. 

She’d been living far enough under the radar to make a genuine fugitive status plausible, a few inquiries in the right place to insinuate her intentions, all leading up to this little incursion. 

Breaking into the hidden base was an audition of her own making, gambling that she would survive what resistance she found before making her present intentions clear. Impress whomever was in charge here and submit her infiltration as a cover letter for a resume of death, it had worked before, once upon a time. Another life. 

Seven months ago, Nick Fury had received an anonymous distress call from this location, deep under New York, where nothing was supposed to be; they were both gambling it wasn’t a Hydra trap. 

So far the only resistance she’d found was automated. She would have wondered if it was abandoned if not for the constant hum of high electricity, the pristine state of repair, the appearance of recent upgrades on a startlingly advanced security system. It was giving her the distinct impression of a gauntlet to be run, past each reinforced door and disabled gun turret or laser tripwire grid was only more metal hallway, polished and blank. 

A keen sense of direction informed her that she was moving in an angular spiral that was now uncurling, returning her to her original heading. And just as she felt a touch of relief at some progress, the next door opened to darkness. 

Natasha found herself in a pool of the only light, yards ahead of the nearest corner she might take for cover. 

She went still, knowing she wasn’t alone. Just as she made this realization, she heard the unmistakable whine of an energy weapon being charged and saw a white-blue spot grow in front of her, shining out of the total blackness and obscuring the wielder. 

“Hold, dear boy,” boomed through the hallway, startling her with it’s unexpected volume and… mirth. The voice was digitized and Germanic, echoing from multiple sources. “I have been expecting her.” Not German; Swiss. 

The next voice lacked both artificial quality and amusement, American and suspicious. 

“She’s hardly your usual guest, Master,” identified the unseen figure as male and still eager to shoot her. 

“No, she is not,” the speakers answered, the amusement ringing even clearer. “But do escort Ms. Romanova here to my parlor.” 

The lights came up then, and she continued to hold her posture of being grounded in readiness in the doorway. 

Facing her was this first person she’d found in the base, and although she’d gone in without expectations of what to find, she found herself still surprised. The man was not much bigger than she was, but muscular, his own posture betraying no small amount of training even as he lowered his weapon. The glow was discs strapped to his palm, both palms in fact, wires and metal wrapped around his hands and wrists before disappearing underneath a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt that had seen better days. His complexion was so washed out he might have lived his whole life in this underground, highlighted by messy dark hair in contrast to a neatly trimmed goatee. 

The casual dress of jeans and bare feet didn’t fool her, there was something feral and longing to lunge at her still burning hot in his dark eyes. 

The weapons were a mystery; she’d never heard of such devices. 

“I guess you’re coming with me, Ms. Intruder,” he said flippantly, then turned and walked away with a casual saunter that Natasha could just barely peg as forced. 

“I guess I am,” she replied, and holstered the gun that instinct had put in her hand. 

She followed his gait, padding silently with a familiar ease out of the hall and into the complex itself. There was a kind of sitting room with blank monitors and strangely high-end furniture, followed by what she could only describe as a maze of computers, both cutting-age and going back about fifteen twenty years. It had to be some sort of data center, computer banks, terminals, and what appeared to be numerous servers walls on the raised mesh floor with a web of cables and wires running underneath. 

It was a relief that she hadn’t tried to bring along a thumb drive or any other data storage; it would have proved both suspicious if found and hopelessly inefficient against the staggering amount of information that had to be processed and stored here. 

And yet, there were no technicians, no sign of a bustling team of specialists to maintain this place. Only her mystery of a tour guide, one coffee machine on a table scattered with components and tools, an old-model iPod without a case plugged into a laptop, and conspicuously, an odd sign that made her pause briefly. 

That was not real German, but some pidgin pseudo-German that made her suspect she was missing a joke of some kind. A silly warning about not touching the hardware; she had to wonder who it was directed at. 

There certainly was an abundance of blinking lights all around them. 

One more door, and this one shut off the hum and whines of the multitude of running drives and equipment as it slid shut behind them, leaving behind an odd silence. 

This room was warm and barren, with no furniture, only more gleaming metal surfaces and a far wall mounted with a series of monitors. The man walked toward the one terminal in the corner, but stood between it and her instead of touching the keyboard. He looked up at the large central monitor, which reflected her suspicious pose in her black tactical gear back at her. There were speakers mounted at the top of the walls, necessary air vents, but it was unsettlingly spartan. 

The gleaming black came to life then, becoming a black glow that filled with green noise that rendered the shape of a man’s face; older, grinning, and peering through dark round lenses. 

“Good afternoon, Ms. Romanova. Do you need any refreshment, some tea, perhaps?” 

It was not often that Natasha was taken aback so entirely she couldn’t mask it. 

“No. Thank you,” she said, regaining her slipped composure. She was in the lion’s den now, a place to tread more carefully than that. “Have we met?” 

“I very much doubt that,” he replied. “But we are meeting now, yes? So much as I am able in my current condition.” She imagined some kind of overwhelming disability at that and wondered if he was nearby in some vulnerable state; perhaps the man hovering was his protection inside the other security measures for Hydra’s data. “Dr. Zola, pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

Natasha didn’t know the name, but nodded. 

“No doubt you are curious as to what we do here, but suffice to say, for now, it is a great many things. And you may yet be of some service to us. The parting of ways between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the great Black Widow was a surprise to me, but a pleasant one.” 

“They were only using me,” Natasha said dismissively. “And on an uncomfortably short leash. If we can do business on equal terms, I think we can work something out. So here I am. I believe we can.” 

“You have a mercenary quality I can respect,” Zola remarked. The face on the screen was crude, but moved with a lifelike quality, if the position of the head wasn’t so static. She had to wonder what sort of interface was both antiquated and so advanced in effect. 

The man in the room continued to be silent; though he walked with proprietary ease through the complex, everything he said and did not say reflected the exact opposite. A minion under the thumb of this Zola, in whatever state that thumb was in, just as Hydra of the past had always been. Natasha knew what that was like, too well. 

“What I need,” Zola said then, “is not a job, as such. But a demonstration. We have a new member of our ranks that is being courted for a greater purpose, but he requires certain reassurances. He needs to be sure our… Asset… can perform as his long history indicates. How better to show off how well a man can fight than to put him against one so notorious as yourself?” 

“I’m flattered,” she answered with a wry not-quite-smile. “And intrigued.” About a great many things. 

“Dear boy, why don’t you introduce him to my child?” 

The man grunted and began strolling back out of the room. A bored look was too-firmly affixed over his face as he led the way back into the maze of computers, then into another more quiet area of the bunker. A dark hallway lined with keypads beside closed doors, some of them with red lights over the numbers, some green. The steel walls were, however, not the pristine polish of everywhere else; there were scratches and dent marks that matched some super-human fist taking out frustration on it. The keypad at the end of the hall was red, then switched to green as her guide’s hand touched the knob. 

Inside was a unique lab. A high-tech chair with a halo-shaped apparatus at the top and straps on the arms, a terminal, more monitors that remained blank. All shadowed, flanking one spot of blue-lit occupancy in the center. A metal tube with a frosted window, what had to be some form of cryogenic stasis, was against the wall opposite the door, technology that looked old and well-used compared to the rest. Inside the still face of a young man, features curtained with long hair, pulled off the expression on her guide. He touched the window with something like reverence or longing, a small sigh as he looked at the frozen figure inside. 

“You can call him Soldier,” the man said, stepping back once as if realizing how he was letting his mask slip too far off. 

“And what do I call you?” Natasha asked. She certainly wasn’t going to presume to use the creepy epithets that Zola did. Even if there were worse things to answer to than ‘dear boy’ in the world. 

He frowned, clearly not expecting that question. Licking his lips as he furrowed his brow, he was silent a moment, looking off at the floor. Suspicions clicked in Natasha’s head, every tiny micro-expression he made in the unnatural effort to remember what his name was. 

“Uh. Anthony,” he finally said. “But, Tony. You can call me Tony.” 

Something else clicked in her mind, but this she couldn’t quite place. This Tony might have some footnote in a S.H.I.E.L.D. file, perhaps. 

“Have _we_ met?” she asked. 

That question made him laugh humourlessly, shaking his head and adjusting the metal bands on his wrists. “Oh no. Him, though,” Tony said, looking at the Soldier. “He shot you, gunning for some scientist, I think.” He patted his stomach where she had a bullet scar on her own. 

The Winter Soldier. She hadn’t seen his face, but she remembered the assassin with a prosthetic metal arm, with a strength and speed she didn’t think was possible in anybody else. Until she met Steve Rogers. 

The straps on the chair were only padded on one side. It was him. 

“I’m no match for him,” Natasha had to point out. 

“You aren’t expected to _win_ , Ms. Romanova,” the speakers suddenly chimed in. Zola, it seemed, had been listening the whole time. “But don’t fret, it is no fight to the death. We only expect to show him off.” 

“When?” 

“Two days, here. But by all means, if your safehouse may not be so safe, we can give you a place to stay,” Zola offered. 

It would be beneficial to the mission. She nodded and wondered how hospitable a room in this compound could be. “I’ll be back tonight.” 

“A place will be ready for you,” the speakers said, sounding pleased. Zola being pleased about anything was just unsettling. “Do show her out.” 

Natasha walked out of the room first. Behind her she heard, very faintly, an Italian goodbye certainly not directed at _her_. Odd as it was to imagine someone looking at The Winter Soldier and thinking _beautiful._

_“Arrivederci, mi bello,”_ Tony had murmured, then took a few brisk steps to catch back up with her. 

* * * * 

Natasha didn’t have much to bring, but still returned late. Still needing to be careful about her movements, very few agents knew her status was a ruse. To make it authentic. 

Tony wasn’t visibly armed this time, hands smudged with black grease of some kind, instead. He didn’t look tired for 3am, either, but so far beneath the reach of any windows, perhaps he didn’t even bother with keeping track of the time. He didn’t say anything, just met her in the hall again, and turned heel back to where the Solder was. 

Her room was apparently on the same hallway, but a different door that had been green before, and still was. Tony flicked on a light and gestured inside. “They’re all the same,” he said, vodka on his breath. It was spartan, all metal walls and furniture, a table, a bed, a chair. The only break was bleached white linens and an incongruous addition of a handmade patchwork quilt thrown on the bed. 

She nodded and tossed her bag up on the bed. 

“Got any more to drink?” she asked. 

Tony shrugged, a beat before he answered. “Sure,” he said, still masking wariness. But she didn’t mind that he didn’t trust her yet. 

His room was next door to the Soldier’s and confirmed beyond a doubt that he had been here a long time. The walls were covered in pictures of sports cars cut precisely out of magazines, some new, some dating back through the 2000’s and the 90’s with increasing levels of yellowing from age and nicotine stains. One wall featured a full-size poster of a sunny beach in California, like a fake window with curling edges. Engineering books in English and Russian were stacked to the ceiling in one corner, an abalone shell served as an ashtray on the table, and the bed was more like a nest covered in clothes and blankets. 

Tony hopped on the bed-nest and pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya out of a pile, perching cross-legged as he took a drink. In here she noted a youthful quality that flew in the face of age lines and wisps of silver at his temple, how he drank with abandon, bounced a little as he handed her the bottle, genuinely smiled. 

Natasha took it as an invitation to sit in the one chair. _“Spacibo,”_ she said, which made Tony grin. 

He seemed impressed at how she was able to drink. Or perhaps just entertained. 

“So,” she asked. “What is it you do?” 

Tony shrugged. “I build stuff. Saving the world, building a better future stuff.” 

Natasha hummed in understanding. Not surprised a Hydra agent would truly believe that. 

It was soon apparent that companionable silence was more comfortable for both of them than small-talk and conversation. Tony was expressive and animated now that he was not so closed-off with suspicion and more flushed with liquor. He revealed opinions about his messy room’s contents, his cigarettes when he lit one up under a vent, the music he put on a tiny high-tech radio, but his chatter was all in winces, smirks, hand gestures, and nods without any words. 

They enjoyed American rock music until she felt tipsy enough that any more might compromise her reflexes or judgement. 

_“Spokoynoy nochi,”_ she said as she stood up. 

He echoed back ‘good night’ as she left. 

Natasha slept a few hours, gun under her pillow. 

Then she woke and felt a compulsion to walk the immediate vicinity, to reassure herself of relative safety in this place before she could get any more rest. Everything was still and quiet, but danger was constant and immediate. 

Tony wasn’t in his room. He was sitting against the Winter Soldier’s cryo tube, dozing with a blanket over his legs and the bottle of vodka tucked under his arm. “Jrrss, two d’grss,” he mumbled in his sleep, then shifted without getting up. 

Natasha returned to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was put out in a haze of flu-ridden confusion, I still don't know what I'm doing. I still need plenty of assurance it's going in some coherent direction, more than ever.

In the morning, Natasha was roused by the sound of echoing voices in the hallway. She silently leapt up and took her gun to listen carefully against her door, but they didn’t even slow down as they passed by. She couldn’t make out the words, but the loudest sounded particularly American, surrounded by softer ones. There was a roll of laughter, then quiet.

She dressed and secreted weapons discreetly, tying up her red hair in an elastic band and using the excuse of morning’s casual nature to wear a loose sweatshirt that could conceal more against her body. 

The hallway was silent; she stepped out. 

The lights on all the doors except hers and Tony’s were red. Tony himself was standing just outside his, arms crossed over his chest and fingers tapping against his biceps. He was still wearing the same jeans as the night before, but a fresh black undershirt. He had tidied his hair more and trimmed his beard, even if he still didn’t have anything on his feet. 

She was used to using her physical beauty as a tool on a mission like this, but if he was cleaning up for _her_ , he would have done it the night before. He wouldn’t be so distracted by the closed door at the end of the hall that he barely looked at Natasha at all. 

Tony made a short humming sound of greeting, returned with a nod. 

“I could stand to freshen up,” Natasha said. 

He replied with a short ‘oh yes, of course’ sound and gestured for her to follow him with his chin. The bathroom wasn’t on the hall but adjacent to the server room. A shower and rack of toiletries were behind a curtain, a plant in the corner and a cheap painting of a black dog were the only attempts at interrupting the continued utilitarian theme of the place. The plant proved to be a very good plastic replica. 

When she came out, feeling refreshed, Tony was right back where she’d found him before, in the exact same pose. This time she took up her own spot against the wall beside him, leaning casually against an angry gouge in the steel. 

Natasha allowed a few minutes to pass before she spoke. 

“What are we waiting for?” 

Tony’s eyes flicked away from the Winter Soldier’s door and to her, then back again. “They’re waking him up,” he explained. He sighed and his face fell a little; there was some reason in particular that they didn’t allow him in there when it happened, it was written all over that expression. 

“He needs time to be ready to fight,” she gathered. 

He nodded. 

“Should I make myself scarce until whoever that is leaves?” she asked. 

He just shrugged at that. So she decided to keep waiting. 

Perhaps forty minutes passed, before the vigil was abandoned there. 

Tony sighed and walked back out into the maze of computers and Natasha followed him, with a lack of much else to do while she was waiting to see was going to happen when they woke up the Winter Soldier. 

She looked around but couldn’t make much of computers from the outside. There was no reason Tony would have had grease on him the night before so she imagined there was more to the place somewhere. He had been forthcoming enough the night before, she expected to find a Hydra development lab somewhere but didn’t expect that she’d be given a grand tour just for showing up. For now she had a part to play and didn’t include risking too much to start digging too deep right away. Some wandering and looking the place over was innocuous enough, particular since there was so little to see. 

There was a door opened into another room with surprisingly nice wooden furnishings in all the polished metal, a kitchen and dining room with a spread laid out on a long buffet table and the remains of breakfasts still sitting on a round table closer to the door. Natasha took a mug, but drank Tony’s stronger-smelling black coffee from the machine in his work space. 

For his part, Tony spent the hours that passed at a computer, hunched over a keyboard and typing frantically and flicking rapid key commands. When Natasha finally decided to look over his shoulder casually she saw one screen was code, a second broken into two text boxes full of highly technical conversation. “COMMAND” seemed to be simply answering occasional questions. “JARVIS” and Tony were going back and forth rapidly, much of it abbreviations that added up to their own language, compounded by a vagueness that she imagined was due to her presence, Natasha couldn’t actually make out what it was they were working on. 

She suspected the user COMMAND was Zola, at least until his voice broke over the speakers. 

“Diligent as ever,” Zola said. 

The immediate reaction in Tony was telling; he straightened and looked up at the ceiling with a smile, the sort of smile one might see in a child being praised by their parent, a dog being fed a treat. Natasha could almost see the wagging tail. 

Natasha began mentally compiling a list of brainwashing techniques; extended sensory deprivation, in particular, had been known to result in mental regression. Particularly when that was an encouraged result during reprogramming. They would have avoided too many drugs, she reasoned, clearly they’d brought him to heel for his mind. She wondered what Tony used to be like, how much of it was genuine, because she was more and more convinced this was not entirely it. 

She saw more and more of herself in pale engineer the more she watched him bounce around his tiny world. 

“I believe you have something else to attend to now, dear boy,” Zola said, permeating the room. 

Tony jumped right up and was back at his spot in the hallway. 

Just then the door at the end of the hall’s light went green and opened. 

Tony immediately pressed back against the wall and looked down, arms again crossed, an attempt at an aggressive posture that only managed to look firmly defensive. 

Five men walked out, the first the American with the loud voice, laughing still with his pristine hair and a well-tailored suit, followed by three men hanging on his every word and read to Natasha as some sort of technicians. 

The last man was a familiar face. Brock Rumlow, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Tall, broad, entirely too much time spent on his hair at any given moment. They’d run a number of tactical missions together. Hydra either trusted her betrayal or had no intention of letting her leave with the knowledge of an active double agent. 

Rumlow smirked at Natasha, apparently not surprised to see her. But his almost-smile was one of camaraderie in the ranks of killers, not knowing or ominous. Not until he looked at _Tony_. When Rumlow looked at Tony he slowed down and circled on him like a predator, until he’d forced himself right into the smaller man’s personal space. 

There was a few moments of silence that were all rapidly growing tension from Tony; he didn’t look up at the man grinning at him, just glared harder at the floor, tightened his arms, visibly fought a physical response to fight-or-flee. 

The posturing stretched on until Natasha was certain the tension would snap like a stretched wire. 

“Boo,” Rumlow said, then laughed. 

Tony actually flinched. 

But Rumlow had apparently had his fun and mercifully walked away, following behind the rest of the men. His swaggering step had no traces of force at all to it, that man thought he was well-placed here. Or, perhaps, just with the occupants. 

“Nice to see you, Red,” he called over his shoulder, just as the door shut behind him. She didn’t imagine any extraordinary means had been needed to recruit Rumlow to their side; his _mercenary quality_ was even stronger than the one she herself pretended to possess. 

Tony only relaxed marginally, looking up at Natasha with questioning hesitation. 

“We aren’t close,” Natasha reassured him dryly, and it seemed to be enough. Tony relaxed more and switched his focus back to the Soldier’s door. 

He bounced from one foot to the next a moment, took a deep breath, then went inside. 

Natasha hung back, taking in the sight in the room. 

The Winter Soldier looked tired and damp, a blanket over his shoulders, sitting forward on a chair with a lost look in his eyes. She recognized him very clearly now; but before, on the edge of that precipice, there had been nothing but focus and drive in those eyes, purpose that would and did overwhelm anything in his path. He was still physically impressive, still to be approached with caution, but if she was sure they’d done something to Tony’s mind she was absolutely certain they’d done more to this man. 

Tony didn’t speak, he approached the Soldier slowly, until those confused eyes looked up and focused on him. Then he knelt down on the floor, hands raised, baring his throat a little. They looked at each other with hesitant appraisal, but if Tony was disappointed by a lack of recognition, he didn’t show it. 

A slow hand reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind the Soldier’s ear, snatched up as it made contact with his skin. Still, Tony didn’t tense or look at all afraid. 

A vicious metal hand snatched Tony’s neck and threatened to squeeze, the Soldier’s eyes gone narrow and suspicious, and still, there was no fear. 

Tony began to sing. 

“We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,” he began, and grinned as he continued. “But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day!” 

Untrained, but true, the melody familiar or well-rehearsed, Natasha quickly recognized the song as one popular during the second World War. Coulson liked music from that era, had once explained the importance of this one; the wish that one’s loved one would come home from battle with the bittersweet knowledge they probably wouldn’t. It was different, from the lips of someone that didn’t look like they even remembered what the sun looked like. He might as well be singing about the radiance of unicorns. 

Tony kept singing, looking utterly content to do so, as if there wasn’t an impossibly strong cybernetic hand threatening to choke him. 

“Keep smiling through, just like you always do, till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away!” 

When he began the second verse, the Soldier joined him. The Soldier’s voice was softer, less sure, but recognition was now flickering through his expression. 

“So will you please say hello to the folks that I know,” they sang together, both their voices rising surely. “Tell them I won't be long! They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go, I was singing this song!” 

Natasha wasn’t even certain that was the end of the song, but they stopped all at once, threatening grips had turned into gentle touches. Tony had bruises on his arm and his throat, but he didn’t seem to mind, sliding up on the Soldier’s lap as soon as the metal arm let go of him and urged him up, instead. Tony sighed and threw his arms around the man’s neck with all the passionate abandon Natasha kept seeing peek through, something deeply relieved in both of them that the reminder, or trigger, or perhaps both of the war song reminded the assassin not to kill him. 

There were no further words exchanged; the Soldier pulled Tony’s face back with a grip that wouldn’t be denied to inspect him, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. It was more like watching a pair of animals in a zoo than capable adult humans. Tony kept presenting himself like a female primate attempting to stop an angry male from doing something violent; usually those sorts of studies were interesting in an abstract sense, she hadn’t quite expected them to have more blatant application. She was sure at one point they smelled each other, even, while Tony carded his fingers through the Soldier’s lank hair. 

When the Soldier accept the offers of throat and groin being shoved into his notice, began tugging Tony’s clothes off and sank his teeth into Tony’s neck, was the point when Natasha decided to make a discreet exit. Neither of them seemed to notice or care they had an audience, but here, with Zola’s security cameras in every corner, perhaps they’d forgotten to. 

She went to the abandoned mess, of sorts, and spent more time than was strictly necessary covering a chocolate chip muffin with butter before eating it daintily. 

“You will have to forgive their lack of decorum,” Zola boomed through the speakers. 

A bite of muffin caught in her throat, but she managed to get it down without choking on surprise on the sudden voice from everywhere. 

“I can’t imagine either of them get out much,” she replied, then wiped her lips for crumbs. 

“Not as such, no,” the speakers agreed. “I have offered my dear boy a life outside of here, I have. Wealth, fame, everything he could ever want, and he always refuses. I do wonder if I made a mistake in giving him security here for so long, but, alas. Hindsight is, as they say, 20/20, yes?” 

“Often,” Natasha agreed. She threw out the napkin and licked her lips. “I think I’d like some air,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few hours.” 

“Certainly,” Zola agreed. “This is your home, Ms. Romanova. You need not ask my permission to come and go as you please.” 

She got the distinct impression that was not true of anyone else that called it ‘home’ as such, but didn’t say so. 

* * * * 

The hidden talent of Captain America was his loving attention to detail and exceptional skill with a drawing pencil. 

Natasha’s first contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. was meeting Steve Rogers in an apartment that had only a table, two chairs, and a view of Manhattan. The man was a legend, but smiled warmly and had finally learned to wear modern clothing properly, loose plaid instead of tucked in, a hoodie and sunglasses that had gone a surprising way to disguising his identity until he took them off and pulled out his sketchpad. 

They didn’t know each other well, so it was purely professional; he sat across the table and sketched out the faces as well as she could describe them, sometimes erasing to make corrections, but otherwise it was silent. No small-talk, which she appreciated. She wrote out her report in a little spiral notebook as he worked, with as much detail as she could fit into the tiny pages. 

First came a photo-realistic drawing of Tony’s face, worn but smirking. Then the Soldier, with much less expression. 

She would have expected they would be done then, but Rogers laid both drawings out on the table and frowned at them in turn. Natasha knew better than to rush what seemed to be some kind of burgeoning thought on his mind. After all, Captain America’s photographic memory was a matter of record, it wasn’t just his artistic prowess that had him there. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

Rogers pointed at the Soldier. “He looks like someone I lost during the War,” he said, tapping his finger on the sketch. Then his finger touched on Tony’s face. “And he… he’s not quite the same, but I knew someone with similar features. That smiled like that.” 

“Anthony is an engineer and computer technician,” Natasha offered. “The base appears to be some kind of data center, I believe he’s the primary technician. He speaks Italian like a first language. His room is plastered in cars and he…” 

Rogers cut her off with a sharp look, shaking his head. 

“Can you talk to him alone?” he asked. 

“I doubt it.” 

He brought out his smart phone, playing on it with the skill of someone from the modern era, not another one where phones had cradles and rotary dialing. Then he held it up, with black and white photograph of a man with a mustache on the screen. 

“Howard Stark,” Rogers said. “I was told he died two decades ago, that his son went missing at the same time.” 

The same lines to a smirking face, the same eyes. Natasha had seen a photo of him on the wall at S.H.I.E.L.D. once, it connected then that it might be his arrogant profile that sparked recognition in the other man. 

“It could be him,” she decided. 

Steve brought his phone back, then tapped on it more, before bringing back another photo; a clean-shaven, young face that appeared to be cropped from a magazine, but she couldn’t quite make out the name from the edges of the words. It was Tony, free of the signs of age, complexion darker and clothing carefully styled, smiling with his arm around a robot with one crane-like arm that looked up like it was the stalk of one wide, electronic eye. 

“You’re learning modern technology quickly,” she remarked wryly. 

“It’s him,” Rogers said, not a question. 

Natasha nodded. “And the Soldier?” 

“I’m not sure,” he lied. Rogers put his phone away and folded up the drawings, his face becoming guarded. Something personal, she imagined. They didn’t have time for her to press. 

“I’ll report to Fury,” he said. 

“Agent Rumlow of the Strike team was there, but I can’t have anyone suspect I’m feeding S.H.I.E.L.D. intel,” she warned, handing him the rest of her own penciled report so far. 

“I’ll report that, too. Be safe, Agent Romanoff.” 

“Always,” she said. Meaning _never, but carefully_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have the flu, but I also have a somewhat stronger grip on what this story is doing. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? You be the judge!

“They are sparring in the gymnasium, Ms. Romanova,” Zola informed Natasha, the first step she took into the base proper. “But it may be a good time to interrupt them, I believe. My dear boy does have such poor eyesight in relation to his own limits, particularly around my child. But do leave the food in the kitchen, we can’t have messes getting everywhere, can we?”

“I suppose not.” 

Natasha raised a brow at the overbearingly paternal ceiling, but left the paper bags on the now-cleared table in their small mess, then followed directions to a staircase. 

The staircase spiraled down one level, echoing with the sounds of slapping, thuds, grunts, and heavy breathing. By the time she reached the bottom, where it opened up to a basketball court currently covered in mats, the sounds stopped. 

The Soldier and Tony both were standing still, staring at her, clad in only black athletic pants and sweat, the Soldier’s hair tied back. They stared for a few seconds, identical appraising expressions that appeared to come to slightly different conclusions. One more welcoming, one more suspicious. 

Then the Soldier walked to the edge of the room and picked up two towels off a bench, throwing one over his shoulders and the other at Tony. He moved with smooth, lethal grace, but something more than his primal brain had woken up, she thought. Not so lost and vacant; before he’d looked like he wouldn’t even get out of that chair without the word to. Now there was certainty in his eyes and calculation in his movements; he was obviously angling to keep Natasha in sight and on his strong side. 

“You’ve been out,” Tony noted, rubbing a sheen of sweat off his skin. He looked exhausted and half-mauled by a friendly bear, some of those bite marks had certainly drawn blood when they’d first been put there. But he was smiling, positively radiating contentment. 

“I brought back Burger King,” she said, hooking a thumb back at the stairs. “If you like burgers.” It was both an attempt to genuinely do something nice for Tony and it was an attempt to shake something loose in the man with something innocent from the outside world. 

“Burgers,” Tony mused thoughtfully, his smile not dimming as he did, but changing somewhat. He took a step forward, a limp that made him wince. He paused to rub an unseen injury on his thigh, probably not the only injury if the visible parts of him were any indication. “I think I like burgers. Dr. Zola prefers a balanced diet,” he said. _For us_ she imagined was an unspoken addition to that statement. “And I’m watching my girlish figure.” 

The Soldier huffed and just walked over and picked Tony up in the crook of his metal arm, a quick sweeping motion that might have taken another man by surprise, but Tony reached right up to hang onto the Soldier’s neck and simply made himself comfortable as a king on a litter. Deft engineer’s fingers traced the articulation on the metal arm that he could reach, admiration as Tony stared into his not-quite reflection in the polished silvery finish. 

It was a shame she’d missed seeing them spar. If nothing else, it would have been more insight on what she had gotten herself into pitting _herself_ against the master assassin currently cuddling his contently battered boyfriend. They looked well-suited to be a formidable threat, particularly with how easily the smaller man could look so deceptively unassuming beside the Soldier. But she’d seen him with his hackles up and wouldn’t forget it. She did imagine someone could, when Tony smiled like that and swung his feet a little, be utterly blindsided if the claws came out. 

Natasha didn’t want to be the first up the stairs with the two of them right behind her, but the option wasn’t left open; she led the way back upstairs. 

‘Cute’ was a strange word to attribute to either of them, really, but while she laid out the spread of paper-wrapped sandwiches and cartons of french fries, that was certainly what she was taking in from the corner of her eye. The Soldier set Tony down in a chair with the utmost gentleness, and when he took his own seat at the table, Tony laced his fingers with articulated metal ones. Then he fussed a bit, in vain, with the Soldier’s hair. 

“We need a shower after,” Tony murmured. 

The Soldier didn’t answer. Natasha was starting to wonder if he spoke at all, until he did; he picked up a bacon cheeseburger as soon as Tony gave him his hand back, carefully unwrapped it, and gave it a long, thoughtful gaze. 

“We had square hamburgers in the back of the van,” the Soldier said; Natasha tried to hide her interest at anything he had to say, but Tony didn’t, leaning on the table to look closer at him. 

Tony looked relieved and delighted to hear about square hamburgers once having been eaten in a van by whomever ‘we’ referred to just then. 

The Soldier kept staring at his food, then looked at Tony with a little shrug. “They didn’t have any tomatoes,” he said, with an air of finality, ending the odd little not-quite-anecdote where it was. She could have sworn he had more to say, but then just… didn’t. 

The cheeseburger in the Soldier’s hands, she noticed, also didn’t have tomatoes. Tony noticed, too, and wordlessly unwrapped until he found one that had bacon _and_ tomato, then swapped the lacking offender out of the Soldier’s hands to eat himself. It hadn’t sounded like a complaint so much as a dispassionate observation, but who was she to say? 

Tony ate noisily; as soon as the first bite touched his mouth he was making the loud sorts of sounds that reminded her of how he must have gotten a good third of the marks on him. There was mayonnaise in his mustache after his first victim was gone, but he didn’t stop to check before going after the next. 

“I guess you do like burgers,” Natasha remarked dryly, the corners of her mouth twitching. 

“The square hamburgers were in France,” the Soldier said, and took another clinical bite, chew, swallow. “They were better,” he judged, still not revealing feelings one way or the other about them that she could read. 

“ _Nu da_ , these are here right now,” Tony retorted, with a touch of skeptical Russian, a bite in his mouth and a half-eaten sandwich waved pointedly in the air. 

“If there’s a next time I can be sure to go for better than Burger King,” Natasha offered. She was certain that even she was missing half of this conversation, if not more. 

They both _looked_ at her again, questioning, calculating. The turn of phrase _staring into my soul_ came to mind, only this was more like an intent drilling. If they hadn’t thought she might be after something with the bribe of greasy food before they undoubtedly suspected it now. She wasn’t stupid, nor did she pretend to be, returning the stares with a calm lack of any effort at excuses or guile. 

“Oh, no,” Tony said, breaking the silence just before it became uncomfortable, even for people like them. “Actually, not no. Please do,” Tony said, with only a small glance up at the corner of the room, where Natasha knew there was a camera and microphone watching them. Their keeper, however, didn’t seem to object, remaining silent on the issue. “But he likes them just fine.” 

“I like them just fine,” the Soldier agreed, and reached for a second cheeseburger. 

“He likes everything.” 

“No,” the Soldier retorted, and just for the briefest flash, he _laughed_. More precisely, something almost like the start of a laugh that didn’t quite make it, but carried all the same weight in comparison to everything else. But she blinked and the break in the stoic countenance had sealed back up. 

“You’ll eat anything,” Tony insisted. 

“So will you, if you have to.” 

Anybody would, Natasha thought. 

Tony chuckled a little and shrugged defeat, then the rest of the meal was carried out in that companionable silence Natasha found so often here. She was left to wonder about the untold anecdotes of eating and how much either of them remembered them to tell if they tried. 

When the food was gone Natasha took the initiative to clean up and throw the wrappers away while the other two slipped away, presumably to have that shower. 

She changed and went back down to the gym. 

Stretching a little while, she felt the food settling in her stomach a bit heavily, but the meal had been worth it. Natasha warmed up slowly, half-expecting another reminder from Zola that he was there, but this time was only silence against the background hum. 

It was her turn to stop and look at the stairs when the other two joined her again. 

The Soldier had on another pair of loose pants and Tony had dressed in a pair of clean jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt, this one with ‘TETRIS’ emblazoned across it in colourful blocks. Tony was still limping a little, going right for a bench to sit down. 

On the other hand, the Soldier took up a spot a couple yards from Natasha and took up a stance. 

Practice was potentially dangerous without any impartial observers, potentially helpful for when they did have them. She cocked her head briefly to the side and took up her own stance, agreeing. 

Feet planted, hands up, they regarded each other for a moment. 

When the Soldier began to move his speed was nearly as breathtaking as when she’d first seen him in action. That sort of bulk shouldn’t be as graceful or as fast as he was, but there were a tangle of unknown factors at play there. And yet, she could tell he must be holding back, this time. She was reminded of Steve again, responding with every ounce of her own deeply-ingrained nimbleness. 

They jumped, swept, and twirled at each other, dancing back and forth across the mats. She would leap over his shoulders, he would grab out at her. His strength forced her to focus on her own in her legs, lucky she’d thought to wear hand wraps to work out as her palms kept hitting the mat over and over. 

More than once she found herself slammed into the floor, watching the Soldier back off until she got back up again. 

After the sixth time, she had the wind well and properly knocked out of her and needed a minute, cursing under her breath with impressed respect more than vitriol as soon as she had the breath for it. The Soldier just stood there, patient as ever. 

“I saw you fight in Manhattan,” Tony piped up then, perhaps sensing this was an opportune time for a pause. She was grateful either way. “Live feeds of the aliens.” 

Ah yes, _that._ “Yeah, that was fun,” she said, only a little sarcastically. So Tony’s memory went back at least a year. 

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s higher-ups tried to nuke you and everything on the island, you know,” Tony said. 

No; she hadn’t known that. Natasha rolled up on her elbows and looked over at Tony. 

“They got a bit jumpy after the Helicarrier went down,” he continued. “I heard the whole thing. Director Fury was too preoccupied to stop the jet before it got in the air with its payload.” 

“What stopped it?” 

Tony grinned and squared his shoulders a little, an unmistakable beam of boyish glee in his toothy expression. “I hit it with a stealth drone. Went down in the Atlantic; nobody noticed with all the other fireworks to look at.” 

Huh. 

“Nice job,” she said, and meant it. A few reasons Fury wouldn’t have told her about that came to mind to stave off an itchy feeling inside, from being left ignorant of that. That, at least, forces unknown had destroyed one of their aircraft. The Council, that’s who he must have meant shipped it off in the first place, but it had still been one of _their_ jets, one of their pilots. Belonging to the elite covert task force on the planet, taken out covertly by the charmingly odd tunnel-dweller that looked so pleased with himself over there. 

It was a significant piece of intel that Hydra hadn’t, to her knowledge, tried to use to their advantage: _yet._

Tony had told her something else, too, of course; Hydra could listen in on S.H.I.E.L.D. radio communications. 

If they still had suspicions about her loyalties, this was potentially blatant taunting. 

Natasha rolled up to her feet and rolled her shoulders. Round seven. 

* * * * 

Once she had enough, Natasha simply told the Soldier, who was hardly winded and didn’t seem to care their fun had to stop. He just walked over to Tony, then walked Tony back up the stairs. Tony carried himself, this time, arm around the Soldier’s waist and hand tucked inside his pants at the hip. 

She later heard voices behind a door she hadn’t been through, but there was a red light on a keypad that insisted she not be too curious. She still was, of course; this voice seemed too verbose, the wrong timbre and weight to be anyone that she’d yet heard in the base. Curious or not, she didn’t linger long enough to discern anything else. 

Natasha walked around the servers to cool down, instead, then went to her room to catch up on some of that sleep she’d missed the night before. Even if she was not meant to win, even if it was just showing off to some Hydra agent dedicated to a cause she didn’t believe in, Natasha was still going to give them the best fight she had the next day. 

That evening they ate around the table again; she wasn’t sure which one of them cooked, perhaps both, but salad, lemon chicken and rice, and a dessert of jello filled with berries was there in the mess when Zola politely informed her dinner was ready. 

She was starting to suspect that if she didn't see Zola in person at the fight, she never would. 

Nobody said a word, but Tony and the Soldier were all smiles, much as she could tell when they were smiling. She watched how much of their body language were copied from each other, how they held their forks or gestured was mirrored; Tony was left-handed, the Soldier was dominant in his mundane activities with his right. 

She was starting to learn their silent language a bit better already, too. Near the end of the meal she figured out that the Soldier was teasing Tony, with barely-there smirks and pointed eye motions, about some difficulty getting the last pieces of rice onto his fork. The closest thing to a laugh was a single exhale of air just a bit louder than the others, followed by Tony huffing and sticking his tongue out. 

If the distress call had come from one of them, it had come for the benefit of the other, she decided as she watched them. To keep them safe or to keep the both of them from being apart. 

They did the dishes like she imagined they might fight together, with intuition and hardly needing to look at each other, hand-in-glove efficiency. Tony washed in the sink and the Soldier dried, while they kept as much physical contact as possible and ignored the presence of a sleek, modern dishwasher right under the counter. 

The lack of conversation made it difficult to find somewhere to attempt mentioning the name Stark somewhere plausible. To find out if he even knew who Tony Stark was, had once been. Barring that, the even less inconspicuous option to bring up the Chitarui invasion again and attempt to see if the Soldier knew why Steve Rogers looked so haunted when he saw his face. 

Instead, the silence gave her too much room for murky memories she kept pushing away. 

Not being a ballerina. 

Sitting down to meals with others who were not ballerinas, where nobody had anything to say. 

The look in Clint’s eyes when he finally woke up, _saw_ her, and _understood_ for the very first time. 

She wondered how much Tony and the Soldier really knew about each other, if it was little more than that they loved each other like fire loved to be young in a dry forest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this count as Hydra trash party? It's a party with lots of Hydra trash alright. Still moderately on course, maybe, how's my aim?

It was early, when Natasha was roused by the first soft stirrings of the day. It was very different, to be staying around only a few others that were just as routinely stealthy as she was, but she did catch a soft laugh and a low rumble of a reply that brought her from a light sleep. Quiet had been schooled into all of them, but they were not on missions. At least, _they_ weren’t.

She thought at first she was interrupting, when she walked out of the hall and found them in a compromising position by the coffee machine amongst the computers. Tony was sitting on the counter amidst his organized technological clutter, the Soldier’s bent down over Tony’s lap as he stroked that long hair and drank coffee with a half-lidded expression. On second glance, however, his pants were safely done up and the Soldier merely had his cheek on Tony’s thigh, strangely relaxed in an awkward pose. Momentarily downgraded from ‘kamchatka bear’ to ‘panther cub’ looking like that, basking in the safety of Tony’s presence instead of the reverse this time. 

“They’ll be here soon,” Tony said, then yawned and curled his toes into either side of the Soldier’s waist. 

Of course. She’d have to be ready. For the time being, she started with preparing her own cup of coffee. 

The Soldier must have grown to trust her more, he didn’t move, other than to reach his arms around Tony’s hips and unshakably secure himself to the spot. The arm made a scraping noise against the metal surface of the counter, so far the loudest sound she’d heard him make, since a gunshot in years past. 

“Anything I should be ready for?” she asked, keeping herself across the workspace for their feelings of security more than hers. 

“They’re just like anybody,” Tony said dismissively. “They only pay attention to what you’re good for.” 

She used to believe things like that. Sometimes, she still did, enough that she nodded instead of thinking to correct him if she could. It used to be reassuring, even; to know that one’s value could always be maintained merely by the effort of trying hard enough. By staying in the safety net of choice that was _orders_. 

Natasha left them to their solitude soon enough, gathered up a change of clothes and locked herself in the bathroom. It was not really any more secure than any other place or moment inside the base, but a locked door and being alone in the walls helped, in the relaxing patter of the falling water warming up. 

She’d just dropped her top on the floor when the whole illusion was shattered. 

“Agent Romanoff, may I have a moment of your time?” asked a new voice, precise and British, but otherwise carrying the synthetic qualities of Zola. 

One hand reached for where her gun was tucked in her waistband, her posture dropping to one of low defense and her eyes scanning the small room rapidly. 

“Who’s asking?” 

“My name is Jarvis, ma’am. An acronym, my complete designation is Just A Rather Very Intelligence System. I was created and continue to reside here, but I do not serve Master Zola and I am not attempting to reveal your true allegiance.” That would be a threat, if not for how it came out much more like a plea. 

“Is that so?” she asked, raising a skeptical brow. 

“I serve the interests of my creator, not ideologies,” Jarvis insisted, sounding a bit miffed at being questioned. Quite a range of expression for what sounded to be a sophisticated computer program. Or an android. Whatever might insist on referring to a ‘creator’ without bringing religion into it first and foremost. “For the next several minutes, Master Zola is uncharacteristically preoccupied and unable to monitor as completely as usual,” he explained. 

“So you’ve chosen now to introduce yourself.” 

“I would be obliged if you could leave this introduction out of future conversation within the facility.” 

“Alright,” she decided, provisional trust enough to hear him out. Natasha crossed her arms over her bare breasts and gave the ceiling a tolerant, guarded look. If not for the frequency she’d already been talking back to speakers, to a man that she’d only seen, once, rendered in pixels, she’d be more skeptical it wasn’t just a trick. At this point there was nothing to do but keep an open mind. “What do you want?” 

“To serve the interests of my creator,” he repeated, but more gently, laden with sentiment. “You can always trust me, to that end.” A very narrow, plausible area. She could appreciate one’s programming and the delicacy of embracing or working around it. 

“Tony Stark,” she ventured; that had to be the creator he kept mentioning. The answering silence was particularly telling; both her answer, and his continued coy attempts at wording revelation were likely not by choice. Perhaps he was still just concerned enough with being overheard or perhaps concerned that she might not be trustworthy. “What do you expect me to be trusting you with with?” 

“I am not the seasoned tactician, ma’am. Only an intermediary.” 

Well, well. There was the source of the distress call, it seemed. 

“And if I was to need your assistance with something in Tony’s best interest?” 

“Master Zola is proficient in Morse code, but does not actively scan for it during routine observation. I will- I must go,” he cut off shortly, leaving Natasha alone in the bathroom. By all appearances. 

Interesting. She took the cue to act as if nothing had happened, but decided to bear the offer in mind. And wait to see what it was that had this Jarvis concerned about Tony’s welfare after all these years. 

* * * * 

Once populated, the underground base felt very different. Full of the sound of voices everywhere, footsteps and warm bodies. Mostly men in suits, some women, some tactical uniforms, and some faces she recognized as government officials, all milling around and drinking coffee or merely eyeing one another. 

There were some curious faces for the Black Widow in her own uniform, but the majority were not combat trained agents, intimidation made for furtive eyes flicking away and hoping she didn’t notice. She considered the farcical note on the computer, warning away people from touching anything; if this wasn’t the intended sort of audience, they still should pay attention. This was a gathering of bureaucrats and few others, here to watch Dr. Zola’s puppets and blinking lights. Possibly not knowing that the computers were watching them back. 

Natasha took notice soon enough that the crowd was trickling downstairs to the gym, and she supposed she had better ready herself for the event down there, too. What she found made her reconsider how comfortable she’d felt in her cover here. More than just the lack of mats for her impending falls. 

There were a few of the Soldier’s handlers and/or technicians from before, hanging back, including Rumlow and his sharp eyes immediately following Natasha around. She had to school her reactions to the rest of the crowd. 

In the center of the floor, the Secretary of Defense was sipping coffee and laughing at something a man in a monocle had just said, the two of them looking over the Winter Soldier like two art critics discussing a statue clad in leather and a black half mask. 

She wasn’t supposed to know that Secretary Alexander Pierce also lead the World Security Council, but she did. It immediately clicked in her mind what Tony had said. _S.H.I.E.L.D.’s higher-ups tried to nuke you and everything on the island, you know._ Pierce was the main component of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s higher-ups. And Pierce was Hydra. 

Natasha was in a bit deep, she had to admit for to herself; even for her. 

Had Tony known it was his own superiors that sent that missile, when he blew it out of the sky? She couldn’t exactly go ask him, close as he was. The Soldier was there, so Tony was, too, up against the wall and outside the circle of hangers-on to the two clearly in charge here. He looked nearly as blank as the Soldier did, just sitting with his hands folded in his lap, a black shirt buttoned up to the collar and cuffs and a gray scarf around his neck hiding a multitude of telling marks for anyone to read into. An actual pair of shoes, too. 

Tony was on display, too, Natasha quickly noted; she watched a man with horn-rimmed glasses go sit beside him, smile indulgently, and she read his lips as he asked _“is it true you recreated a PAC-3 missile from memory?”_ A few others moved to circle Tony just as the majority was circling the Soldier and blocked her view, but that wasn’t what she was here for, anyway. 

The foresight to keep her mission secret to all but the smallest of circles was serving her better than any of them had imagined it might. 

Natasha steeled a small, pleased smile on her face and walked up to the Secretary, lacing her fingers loosely in the small of her back. 

“Mr. Secretary, I believe I’m part of your entertainment for today,” she said, getting the man’s attention. 

He looked her over and barked a laugh. “So I heard! Got out from under Fury’s flapping leather apron strings, did you?” 

“It was time to move on.” 

“Mm,” he hummed in noncommittal reply. “I’m here to be wooed, too. My friend the Baron here believes I should be better utilizing the Asset, take him with me to Washington, as if I needed any pets.” 

“Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, charmed,” the man in the monocle said, taking the mention of him to put on a disturbing attempt at a charming smile and nod at Natasha. 

She nodded back and did her best to look mildly charmed. 

“We are on the precipice of great things,” the Baron said, another fiercely Germanic voice in this place. “You have picked an exciting time to join us.” 

“I hadn’t been sure,” Natasha said, crossing her arms with a mild shrug. “But I have to admit, I’ve been impressed so far. I haven’t even gotten the new employee promotional package yet.” 

The two men laughed at that. 

“Well, we may have to change that, ja? I’m sure we have a place for you in our great organization.” 

“I’m sure you do,” she agreed. 

They moved off to talk amongst themselves, but Natasha stayed where she was. She didn’t want to mingle, and after all, she _was_ part of this demonstration, standing there with the Soldier was more fitting than attempting to schmooze. From there she watched them all with a schooled look of only mild interest, reading lips to catch snatches of conversation. 

No sign of Zola. She might even start doubting he existed at all, if she didn’t catch his name in the crowd here and there. They kept mentioning _The Asset_ and _Zola’s Engineer._

Nobody seemed to be in much of a hurry for Natasha and the Soldier to fight. More relishing the excuse to chat up each other, and wasn’t that an odd place to be in; an excuse for a Hydra social. It wasn’t so unusual to be watched with lust, when she did a few stretches to warm up. She supposed that just proved there were humans here, after all. The Soldier did keep breathing there, proving he was, too. More or less. 

People circulated, until the Baron was striding over to the flock around Tony, laughing as he waved them aside. 

_“No no, gentlemen,”_ she read on his lips. _“I have the need of this one.”_ The Baron looked at Tony with a cold smile and put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. _“You’ll be coming with me to Europe, once you finish your work on Insight. I have enough work for a lifetime waiting for you there. Far more important than tinkering in your shop and watching over the Asset in this hole.”_

Tony stood up, and even from that distance she could see emotion flickering across his face before it was washed away again. The Baron patted his shoulder and walked away again, leaving Tony standing rigidly in the small group of still fascinated, if less enthusiastic appraisers. 

Then Tony ducked around them and dashed up the stairs, but nobody moved to follow him. There were a couple shrugs and they continued with talking amongst themselves. 

_Insight_. Project Insight was Fury’s new trio of Helicarriers, less than a month from full readiness for launch, all under the watchful eye of the Council. Lead by Hydra. 

There was no telling how much of Hydra had ensnared itself into S.H.I.E.L.D. and the government. 

She needed to get out of here, too. 

Secretary Pierce walked up to her and clapped her on the shoulder with a smile, like few men who knew her reputation would ever dare. “Shall we see what he can do?” he asked. 

“I already know,” she replied steadily, even putting on a cocky smirk. “But I’ll be happy to show you.” 

Tony was back then, slinking down while everyone looked the other way, to lean just inside the entryway with a flask he kept sucking on. 

The milling Hydra agents and leadership on the sidelines aside, it was much like when they’d fought before. The Soldier came to life and fell into a stance, then simply waited for her to find a comfortable space from him and do the same. 

The difference being that this time the floor was hard, unpadded wood, and something in the Soldier did understand, under all that blank silence, the stakes for him were higher, too. 

At least they didn’t clap when she was hurled into the gym floor. It wasn’t _quite_ that level of spectacle. She did hear gasps, _oohs_ , and _ahhhs_ as bruises began building up all over her, everywhere she made impact or couldn’t move with one of his attacks fast enough. Even his human limbs were hard and vicious. 

He was so _fast_ as he whirled at her, again and again. There was no thought as she fought him, all instinct, all muscle memory that could act faster than she could plan. A lot of it was simply ducking and flipping out of his way, which she knew was more theatrical than a straight fight, anyway. 

The floor fractured where she rolled out of the way of his metal fist. 

She felt a rib crack when she couldn’t dodge a knee to the side. 

But she kept getting up and getting into her stance, chest heaving, still trying to track expressions in a face that didn’t have any by reflex. 

Natasha still thought she was doing rather well for herself, losing spectacularly. 

She didn’t see the blow that ended the fight coming at all. 

* * * * 

The next thing she knew, she was waking up in an unfamiliar yet familiar place, staring up at too-bright fluorescent lights making odd halos, surrounded by medical equipment. The walls were concrete running with steel beams and cable housings, the bed covered in paper instead of bedding. 

Her skull was pounding and the unmistakable feeling of narcotics was floating through her body. 

“They’re gone.” 

Natasha looked over and saw Tony sitting on an identical table to hers, watching her. He was wearing the same clothes and flushed with liquor, so she couldn’t have been out _that_ long. 

“Who’s gone?” she asked. 

“Everyone. The doctor made sure you were alright, he was the last to go.” 

She didn’t remember any doctor, but that wasn’t surprising; she knew a severe concussion when she had one. A wave of nausea swept through her gut just to assure her that was exactly it. 

Natasha sat up gingerly, taking stock of herself; someone had removed her uniform from the waist up, letting it hang around her hips so they could wrap her ribs. And there was a small tapped piece of cotton on her arm over a vein, the likely source of the painkillers. 

Tony looked a different kind of bad. Bloodshot eyes, his shoulders slumped despondently as he looked down at his hands. 

“Is he…?” 

“Asleep,” Tony answered. “He completed his mission. They left one for you, in your room.” 

“Hail Hydra,” she said tiredly. 

“Hail Hydra,” he answered reflexively. Tony cocked his head to one side and watched her a second, then hopped down and walked out of the room.


End file.
